Software.Land's Alignment with Society

Overview

Other blog posts have touched on the goals and mission of Software.Land. Examples include:

These posts speak to the geopolitical, academic, organizational (within companies), and personal impacts that are envisioned by Software.Land (and its eventual successor). What hasn’t been touched on yet is why the impact envisioned by Software.Land is so necessary. One needs to look at some socioeconomic trends to understand.

Socioeconomic Trajectories

If you look at the pace of growth in public debt in The United States, the fast pace of growth suggests a built-in expectation of very large increased productivity in the future. This would be the only way to pay off this future debt burden. However, such an increase would likely require unbridled growth in Artificial Intelligence (or other groundbreaking technologies). This level of growth in AI would necessarily displace millions of non-creative jobs in The United States. Where should these people go? The jobs that are being created are far from 1-to-1 replacements, and self-protectionist sentiments that promote information asymmetry contribute to reducing opportunities for these people. The lack of support for Software.Land’s excellent blog posts is one example of self-protectionist sentiments that harm those without access to the right information.

If you imagine a far away future, it’s easy to foresee that one day, machines will be doing everything non-creative and many creative jobs as well. One exception might be jobs that require human interaction, but we’re already on the path towards robots that are identical to humans. Looking out even further, it’s possible that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) will even displace creative jobs (although some argue it could never equal or encompass all of human creativity). This trend towards increased automation is unabated. This suggests that Tech is the safest industry to consider funneling these people.

We’re already seeing a backlash to the rise of AI that is displacing non-creative jobs (catalyzed by high minimum wage):

Current Solutions

One way to increase growth is by increasing the size of the labor force. This is underway in The United States through illegal immigration (opinion). There are many jobs that businesses would like to provide, but cannot because the pay wouldn't be high enough to either meet minimum wage laws, or satisfy legal workers who don't want those jobs. This solution (or bandage) comes alongside increased regulation to slow down the pace of growth in AI.

These are not forward-thinking ideas, and they are very anti-growth in the long-term compared to the solutions proposed by Software.Land. They exist only to please those who are fearful of change. The obstacles that even Software.Land has experienced are shocking, well-documented, and merit much more than their own blog post in the future.

Software.Land’s Solutions

Tying it all together by including what has been mentioned in the other linked blog posts, Software.Land proposes to increase productivity by:

Breaking down information asymmetry wherever it exists: Information Asymmetry is a common tool used to reduce one’s need to produce more output. Combating it is possible with tools that make sharing information effortless.
Reduce regulations on Artificial Intelligence: One of the arguments for increased regulations is the need to promote inclusivity and diversity in AI models. This regulation wouldn’t be necessary if arbitrary barriers were removed. For example, if we removed legacy preference in colleges, maybe we wouldn’t need affirmative action.
Open the doors to Software: There are many arbitrary barriers in the software industry that promote tribalism and subjectivity. Adopting a new formula (see below) for evaluating merit can help to combat these barriers.

These measures require balance:

Increased focus on security: Tools that reduce information asymmetry must be balanced with increased focus on security to prevent information from leaking through security boundaries.
New mechanisms for fair evaluation: Opening the doors to software puts more pressure on evaluations. Existing methods of evaluating talent are highly subjective across the industry. New methods that take the human element out of the evaluation process can solve this problem.

Something that hasn’t been mentioned in those blog posts, but is a foundation of the Software.Land belief system:

Merit = Output (both Quality and Quantity) over Time

The process and how one gets there only matters when there are others involved simultaneously. Everything else is just imaginary.
Experiment without harm to others to find new paths.

Conclusion

This post outlines Software.Land’s socioeconomic alignment on a national level that can be applied to most nations. It is a work-in-progress that will continue to be updated.

Updated: 2024-02-15

Author

Sam Malayek works in Vancouver, using this space to fill in a few gaps. Opinions are his own.